I saw the headlines. Gold surpassed $4,000 per ounce for the first time in October 2025. That’s a 55% rally for the year. A historic move.
But then I started wondering. Who’s actually buying all this gold?
That’s not a rhetorical question. It matters. Because if you don’t know who’s buying, you don’t know if this can continue.
So I dug into J.P. Morgan’s research. And here’s what’s fascinating. There are basically two types of buyers right now. And they’re buying for completely different reasons.
The first buyer is central banks. And they’re buying a lot. The forecast for 2026 is around 755 tonnes of central bank purchases. That’s still way above historical averages. Pre-2022, central banks were buying 400 to 500 tonnes per year. Now they’re buying 750+.
Why? Currency diversification. Central banks are slowly reducing their reliance on the U.S. dollar. Not aggressively. But consistently. The dollar’s share of official foreign exchange reserves dropped from 58% to 57.8% in 2024. Seems small. But over time, this adds up.
Central banks globally hold 36,200 tonnes of gold. That’s about 20% of their official reserves, up from 15% at the end of 2023. So they’re restructuring their balance sheets away from dollars and into gold.
Here’s the interesting part. If central banks with less than 10% of their reserves in gold decided to move to 10%, that would require purchasing around 2,600 tonnes of gold. That’s massive.
The second buyer is investors. Regular people. Through ETFs, futures, bars, and coins. And they’re buying more aggressively than expected.
In Q3 2025, investor and central bank demand together hit 980 tonnes. That’s 50% higher than the average of the previous four quarters.
Think about that. Not a small uptick. A 50% jump.
Why? Multiple reasons. Fear of recession. Trade uncertainty. Geopolitical stress. Debasement risk (inflation eating currency value). Gold is doing double duty now. It’s serving as both a recession hedge AND a hedge against currency devaluation.
J.P. Morgan’s forecast? Around 585 tonnes per quarter of combined investor and central bank demand in 2026. That’s 330 tonnes per quarter from bar and coin demand alone. Plus 275 tonnes annually from ETF and futures buying.
And here’s the math that matters. According to J.P. Morgan’s analysis, you need around 350 tonnes per quarter of net demand just to keep gold prices stable. Every 100 tonnes above that is worth around a 2% quarterly price increase.
So if we’re getting 585 tonnes per quarter on average, that’s 235 tonnes above what’s needed just to maintain prices. That translates to roughly a 4.7% quarterly price increase.
The question isn’t whether gold can keep going higher. The question is whether these two buyer groups stay committed.
Central banks? They’re not done diversifying away from dollars. That structural trend has years to run.
Investors? They’re getting nervous about the macro environment. And when people get nervous, they buy gold.
So far, both buyer groups are showing up. And that’s why gold keeps rallying.